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Thursday, May 25, 2006

We carried our 15-foot burlap likeness of Winkie down to the courthouse before 5 a.m.—hours before the charges against the defendant were to be read out—but hundreds of protestors were already there chanting, “Smite the Satan Bear!” As we began tilting the likeness upright, the crowd fell eerily silent, and for that moment we were proud of our lovingly sewn soft sculpture (even though it was quite a bit smaller than originally planned). But then someone in the crowd shrieked a command, and like a school of piranha they swarmed over the cloth bear, trampling it and tearing it to shreds—using broken bottles, plastic forks, knitting needles, nail clippers, even their dentures (removed from the mouth and operated like scissors).

The police stood by unconcerned. Fortunately for us, the crowd’s fury at Winkie was such that they scarcely noticed his human supporters, and we escaped to the sidelines unharmed. We watched as they trampled the remnants some more and sang, “Kill! Kill! Kill!” to the tune of “Amazing Grace.”

We’re disheartened. Besides indicating Winkie’s continued poor standing in the public mind, this also means we will all have to take an incomplete in Fabric Crafts Intensive.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Fox News aired this photo yesterday, claiming it was taken by a National Security Agency satellite over Afghanistan seven years ago. “This enhanced digital image clearly shows terrorist leader Winkie in the courtyard of an al Qaeda training camp near Tora Bora,” an NSA official told Fox. However, the New York Times reported today that, in fact, no one could confirm where or when the photo was taken, since it was “discovered near a 410-foot mound of satellite photos kept outside NSA headquarters. A gentle breeze blew the photo down to the feet of an NSA employee assigned to sift through the images for any signs of terrorist activity. The employee was reportedly sent to the mound as punishment for smoking in the men’s room.”

Thursday, May 11, 2006

From today’s Fatherland Times:

‘Miss’ Winkie Is a ‘Mister’

Authorities announced today that they had removed terror suspect Winkie from the women’s cellblock of the county jail and placed him in a maximum-security men’s lock-up, after learning that the defendant is, in fact, male.

Prosecutors declined to say how the startling discovery was made.

A high-ranking FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, speculated that the defendant’s impersonation of a woman was simply another in a long string of deceptions. The source added: “This disgusting ruse also shows this criminal’s contempt for one of our society’s most sacred institutions: gender.”

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

From this afternoon's Mouldering Clarion-Times:

Winkie Attorney Silenced

Following last week’s release of a letter that purported to identify terror bigwig Winkie as merely a stuffed animal, the judge in the case has placed a gag order on the defendant’s attorney. “This court will not tolerate the dissemination of anti-American propaganda that might prejudice a jury,” said the 765-page ruling.

The order is unusual in that it does not bar prosecutors from “off-the-record conversations in out-of-the-way places with members of the press whom that office might wish to keep apprised of the progress of this extremely important case involving our nation’s security.”

The judge also called for the defense attorney to wear a literal gag ("to be made of coarse cloth such as burlap or calico") while entering and leaving the courthouse.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

From today’s Pan-Regional Conqueror:

"A 48-year-old writer from Brooklyn, N.Y., has come forward claiming to be Winkie’s former owner. 'The Teddy Bear Terrorist is indeed a teddy bear, but not a terrorist,' wrote Clifford Chase [right] in a letter to the defense attorney in the case. 'Winkie was given to me by my mother, Ruth Chase, shortly after I was born. She herself had received him as a gift from her parents, in 1924 or 1925. She called him Marie.'

"Prosecutors immediately dismissed the extraordinary claims, noting that Chase is an avowed homosexual and the editor of an anthology of essays—tellingly titled 'Queer 13'—which has been banned by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality and MissionAmerica.com. 'The FBI is currently investigating connections between the gay agenda and Muslim fundamentalism,' a prosecution source added. 'Arrests are imminent.'”